2/0 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



Again, as a time in which the aristocracy were making their last bid 

 for power, it is notable for the lavishness of private art patronage, 

 and for the splendour of its domestic architecture. 



The culminating period is that in which the matured style of 

 Louis XIV. receives its most brilliant expression. The finishing touch 

 is put on the classical influence by the acceptance of the unitary con- 

 ception of design. The whole energies of the period seem absorbed 

 in the creation and decoration of palaces and public monuments. 

 Versailles is the centre of interest. 



The third period, that of political decline, is attended by a decline, 

 not in the quality of architecture, but in the unity of its aim. There is 

 a reaction against a uniformity artificially imposed. Free, unclassical, 

 naturalistic tendencies, temporarily repressed or brought into line with 

 the official style, once more raise their heads. The activity of royal 

 works hardly diminishes but loses some of its popularity. Paris begins 

 to regain the first place, and is the scene of a new outburst of private 

 architecture. 



STATE INTERVENTION IN ART MATTERS. Before describing the 

 so-called style of Louis XIV. which grew up in the first, flourished in 

 the second, and began to wane in the third of these periods, and the 

 works of the artists who practised it, it is important to explain the 

 action of the State in directing and consolidating artistic movements. In 

 this Colbert developed and systematised a policy initiated by his prede- 

 cessors. The intervention of the State in the world of art had a double 

 object : first to obtain the same control there as in other departments 

 of activity, and secondly, to foster brilliant results which should redound 

 to the credit of the State. The first is obviously consonant with the 

 whole trend of the age, and in regard to the second it may readily be 

 conceived that, in the eyes of Louis XIV. and Colbert, to give splendid 

 outward expression to the power and prosperity of France was to increase 

 her prestige and ip so facto the efficiency of the government. What the 

 French call representation thus became an integral part of their 

 policy. This belief, reinforced by the current doctrine of political 

 economy, that a country's wealth was measured by the amount of 

 precious metal retained and circulated in it, was largely responsible for 

 the fabulous sums spent by the Court on entertainments, works of art, 

 and buildings. The whole statecraft of a reign as well as the spirit 

 of a brilliant society is expressed in the Colonnade of the Louvre, the 

 Dome of the Invalides, the Gate of St Denis, the Palace and Gardens 

 of Versailles. 



It was, therefore, characteristic of Colbert not only to build roads, 

 canals, harbours, and fortresses, and to regulate commerce and naviga- 

 tion, but to foster artistic production by reviving or founding royal manu- 

 factures, housing and protecting native artists or sending them to study 



